At last Jacqueline stabbed a dot after the word "Finis," and so rounded out her chapter on "Failure." Beyond doubt that tiny punctuation point saved many lives. The besiegers were waxing impatient to assault, and within the City famine mobs ran the streets, crying, "Corn and wood! Corn and wood!" Those who could fled to the Republican camp. The Austrians practically mutinied. Starving and dying thousands clamored for surrender. Yet the ugly, revolting pigmy who was lieutenant of the Empire held them back in the terror of his heartless cruelty. Then the angel of mercy came. From her Marquez the tyrant learned that his speculation in treachery had collapsed. Louis Napoleon wanted no more of that stock. Besides, every French bayonet was needed in France. The rabid Leopard heard, and that night meanly crept away to save his own loathsome pelt. Bombs had begun to fall into the City, when a Mexican general worthier of the name took upon himself the heroic shame of unconditional surrender. The Oaxacans outside marched in, led by their young chief, Porfirio Diaz, and they fed the people, and of "traitors" shot only a moderate few. Renovation became the order of the days that followed. The President of the Republic was to be welcomed back to his capital. The stubborn old patriot's heart must be gladdened by every contrast to the dreary, rainy night years before when he fled into exile. Mexico would honor herself in honoring the Benemerito of America. So bunting was spread over every facade, along every cornice, green, white, and red, a festival lichen of magic growth. Flags cracked and snapped aloft, and lace curtains decked the outside of windows. Soldiers put on shoes and canvased their brown hands in white cotton gloves, and military bands rehearsed tirelessly. Din Driscoll sat on a bench in the shady Zocalo, and contemplated the Palacio Nacional and the Cathedral in process of changing sides from Empire to Republic. Innumerable lanterns being hung along their massive outlines were for incense to a goddess restored. The Mexican eagle had prevailed over monarchial griffins, and held her serpent safely in the way of being throttled. The blunt homely visage of Don Benito Juarez, luxuriously framed, looked out from over the Palace entrance. It was a huge portrait, surrounded by the national standards. Among the emblems there was one other, the Stars and Stripes. The gaze of the ex-Confederate was fixed. It was fixed steadily on the Stars and Stripes. Now and then he felt a rising in his throat, which he had difficulty to swallow down again. "Well, Jack?" Boone stood over him. Driscoll's eyes were oddly troubled as they turned from that flag opposite. "Sure it's hard," said Boone quietly, "mighty hard, to forgive our enemies the good they do." "What enemies?"